by Jill Gregory
“You’re right, Conchita.” Annabel clutched the book to her chest and turned toward the door. “It is time to settle one very important matter.”
On the porch, Brett was studying the gleaming tips of his boots. “Before Annabel comes out here, I need to know something. You’re in love with her, aren’t you, Cade?”
Cade had just rolled and lighted a cigarette and he regarded his brother over the glowing tip. “I reckon you could say that. Any objections?”
“No, how could I ... I mean ... hell, Cade, she’s my best friend. Of course, I never thought of her as a woman until ... until I saw her out here for some crazy reason ... she was always just Annie, sort of like a sister ... only ...”
“Only what?”
“Only when I saw her the other night at Lowry’s damned fiesta, I started thinking ... maybe she could mean more to me. She’s beautiful. And she’s the most loyal, intelligent woman I know. And her eyes, I never really noticed how they glow. No one else’s eyes have that sparkle in them ...” He pushed his hat back on his head and sighed. “Only one problem. When I kissed her ...”
Cade’s eyes narrowed. “You kissed her?”
“Ahuh. Out by Lowry’s corrals when we were spying on his men.”
“Go on.”
“Well, when I kissed her,” Brett went on casually, “it was pretty wonderful, only,” he rushed on hastily as Cade stood up, fists clenched, “only I could tell that her heart really wasn’t in it. And I’d guessed from the way you two were so angry at each other that there was something neither of you were admitting between you. So I figured out that it’s not me she wants after all. Maybe she did once—the thought occurred to me occasionally, but I never really took it seriously. Until that night. Oh, hell,” he burst out, stomping across the porch with restless energy, his boots cracking over the wood planks, “maybe I just wanted to kiss her because I knew you wanted to kiss her—but I thought you should know about it and I also think you should know that you’re damned lucky if she does love you because Annabel is the best thing that could happen to you.”
“I know that.”
“You’d better treat her right,” Brett added warningly, spinning around to glower at his brother in a threatening way that was only half-joking. “Otherwise you’ll have to answer to me.”
“Answer to you for what?” Annabel asked, as the front door thudded softly shut behind her.
Both brothers glanced over at her in surprise and then exchanged quick looks. “For not being nice enough to a certain inquisitive lady,” Cade replied easily, and held out a hand to her.
She went to him and nestled against him as naturally as a rose curling toward a leaf. “You’re always nice to me,” she said softly. “Except when you’re being impossible.”
Brett shook his head, studying the two of them as their eyes locked for a moment in the moonlit shadows of the porch.
“Think I’ll turn in,” he said pointedly, but Annabel’s voice stopped him.
“No, wait. I have something to show you. Both of you.”
The night air was cool, but it felt refreshing upon her cheeks and neck as she moved slightly away from Cade and held up the book.
“Cade, you asked me what this was one time when it fell out of my carpetbag.”
“Oh, yes, that famous carpetbag. Is there anything you don’t have tucked away somewhere inside that thing?” he teased her.
“Yes,” she assured him, “there isn’t a stove in there, nor a horse. Nor a saddle. But that’s about it,” she admitted. Then her smile faded and her expression grew serious. “This is my aunt Gertie’s old diary. I’ve kept it as a keepsake, but this evening, while you two were out walking with Tomas and talking about whatever menfolk talk about when they go off like that, I dug it out of my carpetbag and I read it.”
“You read Gertie’s diary?” Brett frowned disapprovingly at her. “Why?”
“I only read parts of it. Parts pertaining to events that took place years ago. I wanted to see if she might shed some light on what happened around the time of your mother’s suicide.”
Silence descended upon the porch, but for the hum of insects and the distant wail of a coyote. Annabel glanced cautiously from one brother to the next. Brett looked stunned, Cade thoughtful.
“I assume you found something interesting.” Cade lifted one eyebrow at her, but though his words were spoken lightly, his features were dead serious.
“I did. I think you should both read several entries —or ... let me read them to you.”
Brett nodded and swallowed, looking tense and pale in the shimmer of moonlight. Cade said nothing, but merely watched in taut silence as she opened the weathered volume to the page she had marked and quietly began to read aloud.
“March 11, 1861—What a dark day this has been. Rain and clouds all morning long, that clumsy Marta dropped a pan of fresh biscuits on the floor, and little Master Brett has the devil of a cold. But the worst of all was the missus. Poor Mrs. McCallum, Bridget found her pacing in her room today, quite beside herself. Crying, she had been, but no one knows the reason why. When Bridget asked her if there was anything she could do for her or get for her, Mrs. McCallum said only that she should get her Mr. McCallum’s hunting rifle and let her put an end to her misery. Bridget was nearly beside herself and when she told me, I went straight to Mr. McCallum. Maybe it was not my place to do so, but the look in Mrs. McCallum’s eyes lately puts great fear in my heart—she is that sad and that haunted. Mr. McCallum turned pale when I told him, poor man. He thanked me for coming and sent me away.
As soon as I left the study though he followed me out into the hall and went straight upstairs—to find her, I imagine. I pray that he is able to help her with whatever troubles are tormenting the poor thing. It is plain that he loves her more than anything—I have never seen him be so gentle or solicitous with anyone else ever—even his sons—Master Cade, God bless him, such a good sturdy boy, and even little Master Brett.”
Annabel glanced up. “There’s some more, but that is all that day that relates to your mother and Ross. But there is another entry that you must hear. Listen.
“I am so distressed I do not know how I will ever find a moment’s sleep tonight. I went down to the kitchen late to have a cup of warm milk and a slice of the cherry tart left over from supper, and before I started back up, I thought I heard a noise in the cellar. Thinking it might be rats, I took a candle and a broom and went down to see for myself but couldn’t find anything, and then, as I was coming up the steps, I heard voices there in the kitchen. Well, I froze when I realized it was Mr. McCallum himself and Mrs. McCallum. I didn’t know what to do, and being embarrassed, I stayed where I was on the stairs. The door was closed and they must not have heard my footsteps. She was crying, poor, poor dear, and he was comforting her. ‘You mustn’t worry about him,’ Mr. McCallum said. ‘I will not let that scoundrel hurt you again.’
She began to cry even harder and said he must hate her for what she’d done, for all the trouble she’d brought him. Mr. McCallum begged her not to distress herself, he vowed that he loved her, and his tone was so tender there were tears on my cheeks. Something awful is afoot, I told myself but Lord help me, I do not exactly understand what it is. I waited there on the steps until they had left the kitchen and gone up to bed. She seemed comforted in the end, but the sounds of her misery ring still in my ears. I wish I had never heard what I did. I will say nothing to anyone for it’s their own business, poor souls, and I trust Mr. M to take care of it.”
Annabel lowered the book and touched Cade’s arm. “Are you all right?”
He met her gaze with eyes bleak as fog. “It ... seems that I ... misjudged ... him.” There was a terrible agony in his voice that flayed at her heart.
“It was a mistake, Cade. You couldn’t have known ...”
“What about me?” Brett burst out miserably. “I didn’t even give him a decent chance to explain. I ran off ... like a coward,” he cried, and wheeled away from them t
o gaze out at the mountains so quickly that Annabel knew there were tears in his eyes. “I was so eager to believe Boxer’s version of things. Was there ever a bigger fool?”
“Mistakes can be rectified,” she said into the silence that followed. “When we go back you will both do what is necessary to make things right with your father.”
“If Boxer hasn’t destroyed him first!” Cade threw down the butt of his cigarette and crushed it with his boot, looking as if he’d like to crush Frank Boxer instead.
Brett still gazed out at the empty night dotted with stars. In the distance, moonlight outlined an elk atop a black butte. “Annabel, is there more? You might as well finish adding whatever light Gertie’s diary can shed on this mess.”
“There’s one more entry you should know about.” She glanced uncertainly at Cade, waiting for his nod before she went on reading.
“This is the saddest day I ever remember in this house. The master has locked himself in his study with a bottle of spirits and no one dares try to speak to him, even though it is now midnight and he has not come out since early this morning when we found poor Mrs. M. Shot herself she did, right there in the garden. No one knows but the servants and Dr. Holt. Mr. M spoke with the doctor and then gave instructions to every one of the servants. He said no one is ever to know the truth, that everyone should say it was a fever that killed Mrs. M. Ah, mercy me, everyone knows that secrets are hard to keep in a big house like this, the way servants talk, but if anyone can arrange to silence a secret as horrible as this one, Mr. M will find a way to do it and I pray that he does for the sake of those two poor children upstairs. Bad enough Master Brett and Master Cade will have to grow up without their mama. They surely don’t need to hear gossip and whispers and scandal all their days. Ah, I don’t know who I’m sorrier for ... Mrs. M or the master. I shudder when I remember his face—a gray shade of oatmeal it was. A body weeps to think of it. Tomorrow we shall have the funeral. Oh, there are terrible days ahead.”
Brett wrenched himself around, his face twisted in anguish. “I am taking the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe back to St. Louis tomorrow. If anyone wants to join me they’re welcome, but I won’t wait even a day. I have to get back.”
“I’m going with you.” Cade spoke quietly into the darkness. “We’ll face this together, Brett.”
“All three of us.” Annabel closed the book and went to Cade’s side. She touched his arm. “We can make things right with your father and deal once and for all with Frank Boxer.”
“If it isn’t too late,” Cade muttered with awful bitterness.
“It won’t be. Don’t even think that way.” But though Annabel tried to sound confident, her heart was full of fear. She was sure that it was Boxer who had hired Cobb to kill Brett, and she suspected something else too. “Brett, you left that letter with Derrickson before you ran away. Isn’t that what you said?”
“That’s right. You don’t know him, Cade, he’s Father’s man of business, but he only came to work for him in the past four years. But you’ve met him, Annabel.”
“Oh, yes. A proper little toad. Maybe too proper,” she added grimly.
“You think Derrickson waylaid my letter? That he’s in cahoots with Boxer?” Brett’s eyes widened with chagrin as she nodded.
“That is exactly what I think. Before we get on that train tomorrow, I’m sending another wire to Mr. Stevenson so he can warn your father of the danger he’s in. Boxer has planned to kill you, to ruin your father financially, and who knows what else? At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“Even murder ... isn’t that what you mean, Annabel?” Cade gripped her wrist, and she looked up to meet his eyes.
“Even murder.”
A coyote howled again in the distance, and the three on the porch shivered. Each one of them knew that they might already be too late.
Chapter 26
St. Louis
No sound or light escaped from within the large McCallum stables, set well at the back of the estate’s rambling grounds, as Lucas Johnson sauntered from his carriage in the starlit yard and beheld the building before him. Behind him, the handsome team of grays that were his pride waited restively, but a quick glance over his shoulder reassured him that his groom had them well in hand. Johnson signaled the man to wait, and kept walking, regarding the stables with a mixture of loathing and satisfaction.
This was the infamous place where he had been held and trussed before Ross McCallum had him shanghaied. This was the place where he had lost his freedom. How appropriate now that this be the place where Ross McCallum should lose his own life.
He eased open the stable door, his heart pumping with a queer anticipation. He’d waited twenty-two years for this moment. Though McCallum had been held prisoner for days now in the cellar of his own home, while Derrickson closed the house, sent all the servants away, and put out the news that their employer had gone out of town for the month, the time had finally come for McCallum to be moved to the stables, and informed that his demise was at hand.
Johnson was now ready to let himself be seen for the first time since Ross’s imprisonment. He would present himself to Ross McCallum tonight for the first and last time, and have the pleasure of seeing the expression on his face when McCallum realized who was the mastermind of his undoing.
Johnson eased open the stable door and stepped inside, tightly gripping his gold-handled cane. One small torch in a bracket upon the far wall blazed out a flickering light. It dimly illuminated the horse stalls and the tack room and the large open area before him with its benches and tools and sacks of feed. The ornately appointed family carriage stood against the farthest wall, and even in the dimness it shone with elegance and style.
But Johnson was far more interested in the owner of that carriage: Ross McCallum, who sat bound and gagged on the nearest wooden bench and who was staring at him as if he were seeing a ghost.
“Yes, my friend,” Johnson said softly as he closed the stable door and trod across the floor to confront his former employer. He immensely enjoyed the irony that he had once been McCallum’s man of business, as Derrickson was now, and they had both outwitted him.
“We meet again, Mr. McCallum. Did you ever doubt it? You knew me as Frank Boxer, but I have returned as a much more powerful person. Lucas Johnson, sir, at your service.”
His low bow toward the gray-haired man glaring at him was full of mockery. “You tried to rid yourself of me forever, but as you can see, you failed. Your life has been one long failure, McCallum. And mine has been one of triumph.”
He tapped his prisoner none too gently on the shoulder with his cane. “Tonight will be the greatest triumph of all—the night I watch you die.”
The gaunt, gray-bearded giant before him looked as if at any moment sheer rage would burst the bonds that held him, but Johnson could see that Bartholomew and the two men hired to help him overpower the victim had done their jobs well—the ropes were cruelly tight and most secure.
This was true for McCallum’s companion as well. Beside him on the bench, Everett Stevenson II glared like a fierce pirate about to be forced down the plank, and Johnson threw back his head and laughed.
“Don’t look so furious, Stevenson. If you hadn’t come around poking your nose into what doesn’t concern you, you would never be in this fix. As it is, you’ve given me no choice but to kill you too. Of course, your death will coincide splendidly with my plans—it will look as if your employer, Mr. McCallum, killed you in a rage after you brought him news of his son’s probable death, a death your agent out West should have prevented. Alas, it could not be so. Ah, Mr. McCallum, you wish to speak. Of course, let me first see if you have been behaving yourself.”
He turned coolly to Bartholomew, who had been lounging on an opposite bench, sipping at his flask of brandy and playing a game of solitaire.
“Well,” Johnson asked, stroking his brown mustache as the thin little man regarded him from behind his spectacles. “Has our prisoner exhibited
good behavior?”
“Well, when I take the gag from his mouth so he can eat, he lets loose with a string of oaths that would turn your ears red, sir,” Bartholomew offered with a shrug.
Johnson chuckled. “Does he?”
“Yes. And then, between bites of bread, he tries to bribe me, but of course, I pay no attention to him.”
“Really ... bribery. Why doesn’t that surprise me? Perhaps,” Johnson continued in a silky tone that barely masked the rage throbbing beneath it, “it is because I know exactly how far you will go to defeat your enemy, my dear Mr. McCallum. After all, in this very stable you did have me overpowered, bound, gagged, imprisoned, and then shipped off to be a slave for life ... shanghaied, as they call it. You will stoop to anything to achieve your ends, but so then, he said, smiling, “will I. Do you wish to hear all that I have accomplished? Do you wish to hear how thoroughly I have ruined your life, the whole dismal tale of your failures? The world will see it clearly when Derrickson is forced to reveal the disasters that led you to take your own life. Oh, yes, that is what you are going to do, you know,” he nodded as he spoke. “Just as your poor wife Livinia did so many years ago.”
Ross McCallum had gone very still. Even bound and gagged he was a formidable man, and if his eyes could have killed, Boxer would have been dead on the spot.
“Remove the gag,” Johnson commanded, and Bartholomew sauntered obediently forward and whisked it off.
“You were a dirty little coward before and you’re a dirty little coward now,” Ross McCallum roared, his tone containing rage enough to fill a concert hall. “If I had but one hand loose, I’d show you a thing or two about taking a life!”
“Ah, but you do not. As I did not that day long ago when you had me shipped out of here so ignominiously. But we won’t speak of that tonight. Tonight we are speaking of you—of all the unfortunate accidents that have befallen you and your miserable pathetic business empire.”